COLORS BUSY BAG

THIS WEEK: Make a "colors" busy bag by creating color cards with objects for your child to match. Create the cards by drawing a square of a primary color onto a small paper or cardsctock then laminate (if desiered). Find objects around the home, like Matchbox cars, Legos, those little "fuzzy" balls that you buy in the craft aisle, etc. Ask your child to lay the object onto the card with the same color. Place in a ziploc bag or make a simple bag to carry in. For older kids, collect many different paint sample cards of non-primary colors at the paint/hardware store, a pad of paper, and some colored pencils. Ask your child to try and match the paint samples by blending colors with the pencils. Point out that they are creating secondary and tertiary colors. Or, they can simply play I SPY looking for objects that match each paint sample card, and draw that object in the notebook.

GRADUATION ANNOUNCEMENT

Okay so I talked a little about photography last week and I mentioned how I like to use Adobe Photoshop Elements. My awesome niece and nephew (twins) are graduating from high school this year and they needed a graduation announcement. They are super great kids and I love that I was given the chance to do this for them! I put my Adobe Photoshop Elements to work and created the announcement above.

The cute photos were fairly traditional and straight forward so I kept the announcement clean and simple. I didn't even import special digital papers, I just used the rectangle tool in the tool bar of Adobe Photoshop Elements, couldn't be more simple.

First, I re-sized the photos and placed them where I wanted them.
Second, I added some rectangles of color in green and gray.
Third, I created my text boxes and added the text. The most difficult part was deciding on colors of the text and boxes.

That's it! Now, all that is left is to take this to a place like Costco or Walmart photocenter website, drop it into one of their "make your own" templates and get 40 large card announcements with envelopes for about $15. Not bad, right?

Do you have anyone graduating from preschool or Kindergarten? This is an easy way to share the news with your family!

Congratulations Brooke & Brandon! You guys always make me so proud!

THE LUNCH BAG BLUES

It's that time of the year when I begin to run out of steam as to what to put in the lunch box. Which is why I was so excited to see this page of cute sandwich ideas from FUNKY LUNCHBOX!



I have one daughter who loves surprises in her lunchbox and adores sheep so after checking out their website I threw this sandwich together for her. She loved it! It doesn't have to be picture-perfect, (mine certainly isn't) it just has to be fun. I just used a regular paring knife to cute the shapes. Later, I realized cheese would have made better eyeballs than the cucumber slice, duh. But all in all it was a successful effort from my daughter's point of view anyway, and that is the one which counts.

You can find templates for your bread slices here.

My son would NOT like to be surprised by a cute sandwich. I thought he would love the cute little Star Wars sandwiches I made using this but nope, he threw them away because he didn't like something different in his lunch box!! Later when I warned him ahead of time he was fine with it. I am thinking he would really enjoy these funky sandwiches if he was involved in making them.

We might try this one together:
That is done with a simple vegetable peeler and skin of a cucumber. I know my son wouldn't like the skin, but if he made it himself he might be willing to eat the letters, which I think are the inside of the cucumber, but cheese would work too. The Funky Lunch people suggest using cleaned up Marking Pen lids to cute small circle, or even the lid from your milk carton. They also use the cake decorating tips for the little tiny circles for eyes.

Anyway, wishing you luck hanging in there for those last few school lunches!! Oh, these little sandwiches might be great for summer picnics or poolside too!

Remembering

Today for some reason I was remembering back when my son was potty training and he tried to deceive us on the sticker chart. See if you can spot his deception. Little stinker. My youngest will soon be two, and I am starting to ponder the potty training thing again. I have told myself that I am not going to stress this time. It will happen when it happens. Um, ....right..?

Document Those First Years - Wrap Up

Well, at least I think this is a "wrap-up". No promises this won't be revisited in the future. Taking pictures of our life is a main priority in my house. My mom put a camera in my hand when I was six and I have never stopped seeing the world through a lens since.

First off, it occurred to me not everyone may know the basics of playing around with their photos. As for what I use, I depend on Adobe Photoshop Elements for editing my pictures. This is not as expensive as the full Photoshop and it does about 96% of what I need and it is 100's of dollars cheaper than Photoshop. Students can buy it cheaper. My camera is a Nikon D80 DSLR which is still awesome despite being almost 5 years old now, and yes I am a Nikon snob but many of my friends love their Canons.

If you are just getting started taking pics of your family, some fun sites to check out are:

I HEART FACES who not only have fun photo contests each week (even for the beginner), they also have some getting started, basic tutorials.

Becky's Blog- Becky Higgins - has wonderful, very basic to advanced, real-life photo tutorials and projects. Becky has created "Project Life" which is a simple way of documenting your everyday experience for you and your children. I love the concept and know this would be something for my family to treasure but I haven't taken the plunge yet (anyone want to buy it for me?) I've been a follower of Becky's since her very first scrapbooking days with Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooking Magazine, (now empire), she's amazing! She is the expert about documenting your child's lives.

Pioneer Woman Photography - if you haven't heard of her yet you must be newly born because she is everywhere and with reason. She is a blogger, and self-taught photographer who probably started it all with her awesome tutorials. It is a must see.

There are many fun sites for adding special effects or text onto your photos. Photobucket and Picnik are worth a visit. Photobucket is an awesome resource and a good place to start as any. Picnik has many different fun effects including one-click teeth whitener that gives everyone that Hollywood smile!


If you are an Iphone or Droid user, there are some pretty amazing apps that will take your camera phone shots to the next level. You really can get amazing results with a camera phone these days. I think this is where things will be going in the future. How many times have you wished your eyeballs were a camera? I have seen so many moments I wished I could capture forever but missed them because I didn't have my camera with me and figured my iphone camera wouldn't be worth bothering with. I was wrong. Check out this article from Photojojo to see what I mean. Also, you might just want to join Photojojo while you're there, a free photo newsletter which is very up to date on the latest and greatest in the world of photography.

I know this is nowhere near a comprehensive list, just what I have found very helpful so far. Feel free to comment and tell me which photo sites you enjoy!

Here are a few more adorable photos that I have seen on the blogs and had to share. Actually, the first one (seen at the top) is by my friend Lori. I saw this and asked her if I could include it on my blog. I love the sweet and simple way she is documenting her daughter Reese's milestones. Adorable!! Lori used Adobe Photoshop to write the text onto the photo, but the websites Photobucket and Picnik listed above would do this too. Isn't it sweet?! I can't see this pic and not smile! This is a great way to help long-distance family stay current with your little one, just print out that cute picture as a regular 4X6 or 5X7 and mail it as a postcard, or yes, email it or post on Facebook.
One more way to document the first year. If you haven't seen my previous posts on doucmenting your pregnancy or child's first year see this and this. I love this one above from ODEEDOH because it is so simple and I love the way the baby is laying or sitting differently in each one, showing some personality.


Love the blue pregnancy shot above. I tried this one, but my black shirt disappeared too much against the brown wall and it was hard to tell what the big bump my son was hugging was. I included it above to show you what not to do. Even though it's imperfect it still has much meaning to me, so an imperfect shot is always better than one you didn't take at all. Anyway, I love the light blue belly against the blue wall seen above. Make sure your nice fat belly is visible! This was from Becky Higgins.


I LOVE this. I so didn't have the guts to do this with kids numbers one, two or three. I was too worried that the special first birthday outfits would get (gulp) ruined. Lame right? Why didn't I just strip them down to diapers and let them get at that cake? I finally summoned the courage with baby number four and wouldn't you know it but she wanted nothing to do with that cake. Wouldn't even touch it and frankly was irritated at us for even suggesting such a thing. (Big sigh) I tried. Anyway, I LOVE the colors in this one which is from Photography by Megan.


This pic is from this etsy shop, selling this cute vinyl lettering. I LOVE this idea and again, a great way to use photobucket, picnik or a program like Adobe Photoshop Elements or Photoshop to add this text to your photo. Doesn't even have to be a newborn.

Phew! Thank you for sticking with me. Good luck documenting your awesome families. I'd love to see or at least hear about your pictures!


- Becca

CALIFORNIA BABY SHAMPOO & BODY WASH

First off, I want you do know I have not received any freebies, rewards or money for this post. This is just an honest testimonial for an awesome product.

I have four children and have always struggled finding a shampoo for them that doesn't irritate their eyes AND is gentle on their hair. I don't know if you are aware how harsh most baby shampoo's are on hair. Some people go the route of using adult, good quality shampoo and use a baby visor to keep the shampoo out of the eyes. I think that works great though, we are a swim team family, and I like my babies to get use to the water right from the beginning. Once kids get that fear of putting their face in the water thing it can take some time to get past it. But if visor thing works for you, that is awesome, we all need to do what works for our own families.

My friend Kim told me how much she liked the CALIFORNIA BABY SHAMPOO & BODY WASH. I had seen it in the aisle at Target but I could never make myself pay the extra cost. Finally, after trying the 6th brand of shampoo that professed to be "gentle" and feeling like it was stripping my daughter's hair down to straw, I knowing that Kim liked it, I decided to spend the extra few bucks. And, may I say YAY! This shampoo is excellent! It is not harsh at all, it is all natural AND it leaves her hair feeling soft! From the moment I rinse her hair, I can still feel a layer of softness coating the strands. Also, it is so concentrated that I use half of what I used with the other shampoos so in the long run it isn't even more expensive, great right?!

Last thing, they many different varieties of this shampoo, one of them having Tea Tree Oil in it. I know there are some states having a horrible time with LICE right now, it seems like it goes through our school every spring. Blame baseball and softball shared helmets. I have heard that Lice avoid hair with Tea Tree Oil in it. I use shampoo with Tea Tree Oil on my kids hair intermittently just to try and stave off any lice, so far so good, (knock on wood). I also spray my kids hair daily, especially in the spring, with whatever styling product I have on hand because I also have heard lice don't like hair with product in it.

So anyway, short story long, I love this shampoo, and not just because I am a "California Girl" either.

FREE Printable ABC cards

Have you seen these? They were listed on MoneySavingMom's website today. There are so many uses for these beautiful retro flash cards. I think they are adorable in a play room but wouldn't they also be great in all sorts of DIY crafts? I can picture them in scrapbook pages, decoupaged onto playroom furniture, I think they would even make an adorable charm bracelet! Wouldn't they. I think I might like to try that. Anyway, they are FREE and yours for the taking, so go soldier GO! Then, tell me how you might use them.